FIG. 1.

Alignments of oligonucleotide primers and target sequences. Mismatches are given in bold type. The nucleotide position numbering is taken from the work of Brosius et al. (5), the bacterial consensus sequence is from the review of Lane (18), and the GenBank accession numbers are given in square brackets. B, C or G or T; I, inosine; K, G or T; M, A or C; R, A or G; X, unspecified nucleotide; Y, C or T. Dots indicate identity with the Verrucomicrobia consensus. Mixed bases in the primers are equimolar.